(Transition: As with any story, it is important to start at the beginning of Day’s life to fully understand what influenced her to make the choices that entered her into women’s rhetorical history.)

BODY

I. Dorothy Day’s social activism results from influences of her childhood and education.

A. Born November 18th, 1897 in Brooklyn Heights, New York, Day’s father’s job as a sports reporter moved the family to places like San Francisco and eventually landed them in Chicago (Jablonski 161).

B. Upon completing high school at 16, Day earned a scholarship to attend the University of Illinois (Roberts 19).

(Transition: With a clear understanding the influence of her upbringing and educational background, it is time to look at the influences of Day’s early adult life.)

II. Dorothy Day’s social activism results from influences of her self-identified “bohemian” years of her twenties.

A. That first job at The Call along with a few jobs that followed gave Day further experience with various radical movements of the early 20th century (Miller in Jablonski 163).

B. Day began to seek out a blend of her Catholicism and her interest in social justice (Roberts 26) but struggled with what she viewed as the church’s unresponsiveness to social problems (Jablonski 164).

(Transition: With a clear understanding the influence of her upbringing and education, as well as those of Day’s early adult life, it is time to look at how that influenced her rhetoric.)

III. Dorothy Day’s rhetoric is direct result of her life’s influences on her social activism, and she provided us with almost 50 years of work to explore with a combination of all her articles in The Catholic Worker, her speeches, books, and letters that have been made available.

A. The first issue of The Catholic Worker on May 1, 1933 addressed topics such as unemployment and trade unions (Roberts 35).

B. This paper and Day’s speeches all have certain qualities to them that are constant.

(Transition: I hope you have seen that Dorothy Day’s rhetoric is a direct result of the influences of her life’s experiences, good and bad, and that she is imperative to the study of women’s public discourse.)

CONCLUSION

I. Dorothy Day passed away on November 29, 1980, but her legacy still lives on today.

II. Summary: This speech has explored how her education and early adult life influenced the rhetoric that would become Day’s lasting legacy long after her death.

III. Close: Let me leave you with a remark by Day in a speech she gave December 8, 1941: “It has become too late in human history to tolerate wars which none can win,” (in Sarkela, Ross, and Lowe 192).

WORKS CITED

Day, Dorothy. The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of the Legendary Catholic Social

Activist. New York: HarperOne, 1997. Print.

Day, Dorothy. “Text of Dorothy Day’s Address to the Liberal-Socialist Alliance in New York

City (December 8, 1941).” From Megaphones to Microphones: Speeches of American Women, 1920-1960. Eds. Sandra J. Sarkela, Susan Mallon Ross, and Margaret A. Lowe. Westport, CT: Prager Publishers, 2003. 189-193. Print.

Jablonski, Carol J. “Dorothy Day (1897-1980), co-founder, Catholic Worker movement.”

Women Public Speakers in the United States, 1925-1993: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook. Ed. Karlyn Kohrs Campbell. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994. 161 – 174. Print.

Roberts, Nancy L. Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker. Albany: State University of New

York Press, 1984. Print.

Stone, Elaine Murray. Dorothy Day: Champion of the Poor. New York: Paulist Press, 2004.

Print.